Dandyism in the age of Revolution : the art of the cut

297 Pages·2015·1.707 MB·English

by  Amann, Elizabeth

DDaannddyyiissmm
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AAggee RReevvoolluuttiioonn
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DDaannddyyiissmm
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AAggee RReevvoolluuttiioonn
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{The Art of the Cut}
EElliizzaabbeetthh AAmmaannnn
The University of Chicago Press • Chicago and London
Published with support of the University Foundation of Belgium.
Publié avec le concours de la Fondation Universitaire de Belgique.
Uitgegeven met steun van de Universitaire Stichting van België.
ELIZABETH AMANN is professor in the Department of
Literary Studies at Ghent University, Belgium. She is
the author of Importing Madame Bovary: The Politics of
Adultery.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2015 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2015.
Printed in the United States of America
24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-18725-9 (cloth)
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-18739-6 (e-book)
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226187396.001.0001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Amann, Elizabeth, author.
Dandyism in the age of Revolution : the art of the
cut / Elizabeth Amann.
pages : illustrations ; cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-226-18725-9 (cloth : alk. paper) —
ISBN 978-0-226-18739-6 (e-book) 1. Dandyism—
France—History—18th century. 2. Dandyism—
Political aspects—France. 3. France—History—
Revolution, 1789–1799—Social aspects.
4. Dandyism—Europe—History—18th century.
5. Dandyism—Political aspects—Europe. I. Title.
GT867.A45 2015
391′.1—dc23
2014023199
This paper meets the requirements of
ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
{ contents }
List of Illustrations vii
Introduction 1
1. Muscadins
19
2. Jeunes gens
56
3. Incroyables
95
4. Currutacos
134
5. Crops
162
Epilogue
199
Acknowledgments 217
List of Abbreviations 219
Notes 221 Index 275

{ illustrations }
1. Ah! Quelle antiquité!!! . . . Oh! Quelle folie que la nouveauté, engraving
by Alexis Chataignier 8
2. Carle Vernet, Les incroyables, engraving by Louis Darcis 12
3. Francisco Goya, La tortura del dandy 15
4. Isaac Cruikshank, The Rival Pigs 17
5. Simon Petit, L’anarchiste: Je les trompes tous deux 53
6. L’ami de la justice et de L’humanité 60
7. Henry William Bunbiry, La rencontre des incroyables, engraving by
Louis Charles Ruotte 96
8. Ah! Qu’il est donc drôle! 98
9. Carle Vernet, Les merveilleuses, engraving by Louis Darcis 108
10. Les croyables au Péron, engraving by J. P. Levilly 109
11. Collets dit parasabre 125
12. Correction croyable 132
13. Perfecto currutaco 137
14. Francisco Goya, Quién más rendido? 156
15. Francisco Goya, Ni así la distingue 157
16. Philip Dawe, The Macaroni: A Real Character at the Late Masquerade 164
17. Isaac Robert Cruikshank, Dandies Dressing 165
18. Isaac Cruikshank, No Grumbling 171
19. Isaac Cruikshank, A Crop, of 1791 183
20. Isaac Cruikshank, The Knowing Crops 185
21. Isaac Cruikshank, Whims of the Moment or the Bedford Level!! 188
22. Tippy Bob 193
23. Mr. Moss in the Character of Caleb 197

{ introduction }
At the end of the eighteenth century, a series of new words emerged to
describe a character type that already had a long history in European lit-
erature. The man once called a fop, coxcomb, beau, popinjay, or macaroni
in English, a précieux or petit-maître in French, and a lindo or petimetre in
Spanish became the swell or the exquisite, the incroyable or merveilleux,
the élégant or elegante, and, in all three languages, the dandy. This lexical
shift refl ected a change in the value of the character. Whereas the old
terms evoked the eff eminacy (lindo, beau), absurdity (coxcomb, macaroni),
apishness (popinjay), and smallness (petit, preciosity) of the fi gure, the
new terms retain to this day positive connotations: to be swell, exquisite,
incredible, marvelous, or elegant is ultimately fi ne and dandy. The charac-
ter that was once a lampoon of fashion became in the late eighteenth cen-
tury an ideal of self-fashioning. The emergence of these positive fi gures
also involved a change of aesthetic, a shift from a cult of accumulation
and excess—a style that drew attention to itself—to a principle of under-
statement and nuance: the art of the cut. My study traces this transfor-
mation in dandyism by examining fi ve dandy fi gures that emerged during
the 1790s in Europe: the muscadins, jeunes gens, and incroyables in France,
the currutacos in Spain, and the crops in Britain.1 I argue that the positive
revalorization of the fi gure and its shift in aesthetic cannot be understood
outside the revolutionary politics of this moment.
The association between dandyism and revolution may at fi rst seem
counterintuitive. We tend to think of the dandy as disengaged and indif-
ferent, too superfi cial to espouse a political cause and too self-absorbed to